Biography
Talbot Brewer
was born in 1893 in NYC, and died in 1981 in Anna Maria, FL.
Tal graduated from the
Collegiate School in New York City in 1912, then graduated from
Williams, class of 1916.
He was in Squadron A in
New York City, which started in 1884, when 18 young equestrians
joined together first as a political club and then as an
exclusive troop cavalry – The New York Hussars – known for its
fine riding and elegant uniforms. The Hussars came quickly into
demand to ride in parades and at the National Horse Show. On
April 2, 1889, the group, then some fifty-three strong, was
mustered into the National Guard as NGSNY, as Squadron A, the
first cavalry arm of the Guard of the State of New York. The
Squadron was often called out to escort presidents, governors
and foreign dignitaries. Squadron A troopers were sent to Puerto
Rico to serve in the Spanish-American war and the entire
squadron was called into federal service in 1916 to patrol the
Mexican border, where Tal served in McAllen, TX, under General
Pershing.
He then joined the Army as
a 2nd Lieutenant when we declared war against Germany. He was in
Company C of the 306th Machine Gun Battalion of the 77th
Division, and was wounded in the Argonne. His outfit two weeks
later was part of what became known as the "Lost Battalion",
under Major Whittlesey. His replacement was killed in this
engagement. At the war's end, he was a 1st Lieutenant. He wrote
a memoir about his war experiences. Tal also rode a horse in
President Wilson's second inaugural parade in 1917, probably
with Squadron A.
After the war, he entered
the business world. His first experience was with the Wilton
Mfg. Co. in New York, in the cotton exporting business. He left
them in 1920, and then joined Henry L. Doherty & Co., who were
fiscal agents for public utility and oil companies. He was chief
of the employment division, and it is interesting to note that
his brother-in-law Walker Evans' first job was with Henry
Doherty while Tal was there. Walker did not stay long, and
instead went on to become one of the most famous photographers
of his time.
Tal retired in 1929, and
he and his wife went to Spain, where they lived for a year and a
half before returning to Ossining, NY. In 1935, he went to
Washington at the urging of his friend Harry Hopkins to work in
the New Deal for 6 months. The six months lasted for eleven
years, and he did not leave Washington until 1946. While there,
he served as a personnel research specialist for the
Resettlement Administration, (which became the Farm Security
Administration), from July 1935 to March 1942, rising to chief
of the qualification section in the personnel division. Again,
it is interesting to note that Walker Evans also found
employment at the Farm Security Administration. In 1942, Farm
Security was abolished by the same law that established the
Civil Service Commission, and he transferred to the latter in
March of 1942, rising to chief of the interview information
service by the time he again retired in November 1945. During
the war years, he was attached first to the State Department,
then the War Department, and his last act before retirement was
selecting American military government personnel for the
administration of South Korea, for which he received recognition
in an article in either Life or Time magazines.
When he left Washington in
1946, he and his family moved to Tucson, Arizona, in an effort
to find healthier conditions for his wife, who suffered from
respiratory problems which today would be called emphysema. They
lived there during the winter of 1946-47, and when the dry heat
actually made things worse, they moved to Anna Maria, Florida in
the fall of 1947, where he lived until his death in 1981.
Belatedly, he has achieved
recognition for his photography, which had been his avocation
since at least his time in Spain. His work was given an
exhibition at the Middlebury College Museum of Art in 1998,
where it was suggested by Keith Davis, Hallmark Fine Art
Programs Director, that his photographs may well have had an
influence on Walker Evans. Inexplicably, several of his
photographs have surfaced in collections of photos attributed to
Walker, particularly in the Hallmark collection. They are ones
Tal took while he lived in Spain, and were attributed to
Walker's stay in Havana.

TRAINING OF
THE 77TH DIVISION AT CAMP UPTON, YAPHANK, LONG ISLAND, NY
September 12, 1917 to April 12, 1918
1917
Received orders on
Sept. 11th while visiting my sister at Harvard, MA to
report to Camp Upton the next day. Being green, I took them
seriously and my brother Wilmot drove me all the way from Harvard to
the camp the following day in his 1916 Mercer, arriving after
midnight. It turned out that no one would have known nor cared if I
hadn’t appeared for several days.
At that point the camp was far from
complete and still further from being organized. I found, however,
that I was assigned to Company C of the 306th Machine Gun
Battalion commanded by Captain George Gaston. He had been active in
the pre-war preparedness movement and in supporting the summer
officers’ training camps and had wangled a Captain’s commission. He
was a well meaning, decent enough man, not too well balanced, highly
nervous, and incapable of organizing himself or anything else.
Later on, while in training with the British, he had a complete
nervous collapse and was removed in an ambulance. In consequence,
the organizing and running of the company fell mostly on Paul
Cushman and me.
After several days of hectic
preparations, the first draftees from New York City began to
arrive. Paul Cushman marched the first lot assigned to us from the
R.R. station and a more discouraging looking group would be hard to
imagine. The Draft Board physical exams must have been a farce.
Many were obviously physically unfit and had to be sent back
shortly. Every nationality was represented, with the preponderance
Russian Jews, Italians, and Irish. They were fed in the barracks by
civilian cooks temporarily hired by the Army and bedded down. The
first thing I heard next morning outside the orderly-room were loud
sobs issuing from a scared Jewish youngster who had a stomach ache
in addition to homesickness.

The regular Army had provided 3 Non-Coms
per company and our tough little 1st Sgt. Shank was
invaluable in establishing some sort of order and discipline. Soon
ill-fitting uniforms were issued, temporary Corporals appointed, and
things began to shape up in a little more military fashion. Close
order drill, physical exercises, and hikes were the first steps in
the training.
After several weeks, a British
Machine Gun Major, Heywood, arrived as our training officer. He
conducted a school for the Division M.G. officers, the first session
of which I attended. All we had to practice with were a couple of
old and obsolete Colt guns of the Spanish-American War era, known to
Major Heywood as the “Joke Guns”. We were taught the British method
of stripping and re-assembling the gun while explaining aloud in
rigidly standardized language each operation. Eventually we had to
do this blind-folded. Also we learned “automatic action” in
clearing jams, target and identification by the reference point and
clock system, and the tactical use of M.Gs. Thereafter I took over
a similar schooling of our company Non-Coms. They in turn
instructed the men in their squads under my general supervision.
After several months transport
animals arrived. Few of the city-bred New Yorkers had any
experience with horses and mules. Some of the Italians and Irish
fortunately had handled animals, and they were assigned to
Transport, under Paul’s supervision. Sgt. Ervine, a fine Irishman
and one of the three regular Army Non-Coms assigned to the Company,
an ex-cavalryman, did a splendid job and proved invaluable
throughout the whole war.
The three more or less independent
M.G. Battalions of the Division received the dregs of the regular
Army officers as commanding officers. These men had served for many
years without promotions above Lieutenant or sometimes Captain, but
with the sudden expansion of the Army they were bumped up to Major
or Lt. Colonel. Our first commander, Major William W. Edwards, was
probably the best of the lot. He was an ascetic looking, high
strung, highly nervous man and a terrific disciplinarian. His
strict discipline did the battalion a lot of good, but eventually
caused his downfall. One of his idiosyncrasies was to require any
officer called to his office to remain at attention with his eyes
front, not looking at him but out a window above his desk. If
one’s eyes wandered he would command “Look out the window”, and this
became a slogan of the battalion. His final disciplinary action was
to call all the men in the Post Exchange to attention while they
were eating ice cream cones at lunch time while he ate one himself,
thereby causing all the men’s cones to melt and dribble on the
floor. Shortly after this incident he had a nervous breakdown and
was removed from camp in an ambulance. His successor, Major
Richardson, was far worse. He turned out to be a despicable little
cheat and small time politician who was disliked and distrusted by
everybody except a couple of characters of his own breed, Joe
McCaffrey and Hall. He boasted about having graduated at the bottom
of his class and had remained a Lieutenant for some 16 years. Lt.
Col. Winnier, the division machine gun officer, was also a complete
fool and failure.
I shared a room at Camp Upton with
Lt. Simpson of A company. I had grown up on the same block on West
91st Street with him and for several years gone to the
same school so we knew each other pretty well and got along
splendidly.
During this training period the
Division had a parade on Fifth Avenue and later on a benefit show in
one of the New York theaters.
Before the Division’s training was
anything like completed, it was ordered overseas as one of ten
divisions requested by the British as support. The crisis was
caused by the German break-through in March which over-ran Gen.
Gough’s V Army and very nearly permanently split the French and
British armies and captured the Channel Ports.
CAMP UPTON to FRANCE
April 12 to April 30, 1918
We left Camp Upton on the rainy
afternoon of April 12, 1918. After a false start and considerable
delay, we marched to the R.R. station where the men were hurriedly
loaded on the cars with no attention to unit organization. The
officers had sleepers; the men day coaches. The C Company officers
were Captain Gaston, 1st Lieutenants Paul Cushman and
Henry Ralph, 2nd Lieutenants Rice, McCaffrey and myself.
We stopped in the yards across Hellgate Bridge where the Red Cross
was supposed to provide supper for everyone, but there was not
enough to go around all the cars. A Red Cross woman asked to speak
to George Gaston, but it was impossible to rouse him from the stupor
he had fallen into after the strain of departure; (discouraging
omen).
The following morning we awoke to
find ourselves at docks which turned out to be in South Boston. The
loading of the men aboard the S.S Karoa started at noon. The
Karoa, about 7000 tons, was a British India Steam Navigation
Co. ship built for service in tropical waters with an extremely high
superstructure for coolness and not suited for the Atlantic in
April. This was her first Atlantic crossing, though she had carried
Australian troops in the Mediterranean. The crew were Lascars, and
the whole ship reeked of curry. The ship was overcrowded with the
H.Q. of the 153rd Brigade and units of the 306th
Infantry as well as the 306th M.G. Battalion. The
officers were reasonably comfortable in staterooms. I had a room
with Jim Etheredge and Al Speight, but I’m sure no soldiers ever had
as bad accommodations on any other transport. My platoon was on
Orlop #2, the lowest deck on the boat, in terribly cramped
quarters. Hammocks were provided for sleeping, but even with two
layers there was not enough room and some of the men had to sleep on
the wooden tables used for eating, games letter writing, etc.
Backless wooden benches were attached to the tables. The food for
the men was pretty terrible, and the process of serving it even
worse.
We sailed in the afternoon, and
while we were in sight of land, everyone had to stay below;
Lieutenants with their platoons.

The officer’s dining room was very
pleasant, on the top deck, and the food excellent. At dinner the
first night there was quite a pitch and Walter Young was the first
of several to depart in haste. Paul Cushman saved me from
seasickness by making me walk briskly around the deck after dinner.
I turned in a little dizzy but in possession of all my meals.
The next morning we found that we
were in Long Island Sound headed for New York. In the P.M. we
picked up two aviators from a stalled sea-plane.
We spent two days in New York harbor
waiting for the rest of the convoy and then sailed, escorted by the
cruiser St. Louis.
The shipboard schedule was more or
less as follows; coffee at 6:30 served in bed by a Malay cabin boy,
breakfast at 8:30, boat call and inspection of quarters while the
men were at the boats, officers meeting, lunch, another abandon ship
drill in the P.M., tea at 4:30, dinner at 7:00.
Twice I was Officer of the Guard.
On the first night shift the men had been fed some bad fish and the
results were disastrous. At 4 the next morning Paul, who
unfortunately followed me, had an awful time cleaning up the mess.
Several days out of New York we were
joined by a Canadian convoy, making over a dozen ships in all.
Ships that I recognized were the old American liner Philadelphia,
the White Star Cedric, the Kashmir of our line, and
the Vauban, whose sister ship the Vestris sank in a
storm in the 1920’s.
The pleasantest part of the voyage
were the evening concerts in the Officer’s Lounge given by a Sgt.
Hochstein, a young but already famous violinist, accompanied by Sgt.
Deering of A Co. They played beautifully for hours at a time.
While in the Irish Sea, I was having
a haircut in my cabin by the Company barber, Troina, when suddenly
the whole ship shuddered and we heard two or three dull explosions.
One of the British escorting destroyers had dropped depth-bombs on a
supposed submarine about ½ mile from us.
On April 27th we anchored
in Liverpool harbor about midnight. Next morning the Canadians were
landed first amid much playing of the “Maple Leaf Forever”. We
docked and unloaded in the P.M. and marched to the railroad
station. All were feeling quite heroic until some wounded British
Tommies shouted at us “Where have you blokes been for the last three
years?”
We were all impressed with the
greenness and neatness of the English countryside in the twilight
ride from Liverpool to Falkstone before darkness fell. We were
awakened at dawn by one of the guards putting his head in the door
and shouting “All out; fifteen minutes to the sea.”
Most of Falkstone had been taken
over by the Army as a rest camp. The men were quartered in private
houses, the officers in a big old barn-like hotel overlooking the
Channel.
In the afternoon Paul and I went on
a shopping expedition. I bought a Trench coat and boots and then we
walked through the old part of the town and out on the cliffs and
the beach. The town was full of convalescents in their hospital
“Blues.” In the evening a crowd of us had a box at a musical show
of sorts.
Early next morning we entrained for
Dover and then boarded a channel steamer for Calais while another
boat was unloading wounded from France.
Typical rough and rainy channel
crossing with many sea-sick. Leaving the harbor we saw two terribly
shot-up British cruisers from the Zeebrugar raid.
Landing at Calais we saw our first
German prisoners at work and were marched a couple of kilos to the
“Rest Camp.” Our men were quartered in a beat-up wooden barracks
with no beds but plenty of bugs. The little officer’s canteen was
the only clean and cheerful spot. The Portuguese section was next
to ours and a Chinese compound, enclosed in barbed wire, across the
road.
Paul and I found a room in a French
pension, the hotels being full up. Calais was the headquarters of
the Belgian as well as the Portuguese contingent, both of which the
English despised. We had some trouble keeping our Portuguese
bugler, Xavier, out of the Portuguese and in the American Army.
The next day all the extra equipment
and uniforms collected at Upton with so much time and trouble were
ordered turned in. Paul and Supply Sgt. Jephson were far from
pleased, especially with Henry Ralph’s “system” for turning it in
which resulted in no end of complications and delay.
A long march the next day to draw
gas masks and helmets. Gaston ordered the helmets worn in spite of
the heat, which drew amused comments from the Tommies asking if
there was “’eavy shelling about.”
The fourth day we entrained for out
training sector and the men had their first experience with the
“Hommes 40, Cevaux 8” cars. We rode only a short way to Audrique and
then started on an exceedingly long hike to Monnecove. C Company
made a record by refusing to put any packs on the trucks and having
no one fall out. At one of the halts we heard for the first time
the rumble of guns at the front.
We reached Monnecove more dead than
alive to find that B & D Co.’s were to be quartered in
“Elephant-back” huts in the camp proper, while A & C were to occupy
farms up a hill about a mile away. My platoon had a semi-roofless
barn but were luckier than the others in having a well nearby with
plenty of water. All had hay for beds. The short British ration of
bread, jam, and tea for supper was rather a shock to both officers
and men.
After a day or two of rest, Capt.
Lewis and Capt. Debenham arrived and work started on the Vickers
gun. Both officers had been with the V British Army which was
overrun by the Germans in March. Debenham had been cut off behind
the German lines for four days and was the only survivor of his
Company. However, he was in much better shape than Lewis. Lt. Col.
Winnier, (U.S.), was in command of the Camp and he and Major
Richardson had a row with the British officers. Winnier put Tom
Harris under arrest for using a short-cut trail from the hill. New
Lieuts. Philips, Baird, and Kinsella were assigned to Company C.
The training hours were long and the
one hour lunch period hard on those who had to hike up the hill and
back. English N.C.O.’s took over the Companies and the officers
were under a typical beef-eating Sgt. Major.
Lt. McCaffrey drew horses-limbers.
The horses were excellent. Catania had a team of buckskins that
made a fine show. Rifles were issued to the men. Rations continued
short and a very expensive pig was bought to help fill the men’s
bellies.
Marched miles on Sundays to Eperlque
for shower baths which turned out to be merest dribbles.
German bombers raided St. Omer
frequently. Seemed to start their bombing run from directly over
our camp. The only night I did not arise and go out to watch the
proceedings, they apparently dropped a dud close by and the other
occupants of the hut did flying dives into the hut and on the floor.
After a particularly severe bombing
Bill Rice and I rode over to St. Omer on a Sunday morning to see the
results which were pretty bad; hospital and ammunition dumps hit and
many houses without fronts.
Amusements, such as they were,
included visits to “Marie’s” café in Nordlingham to join the British
officers in drinking Champagne and stout, “Black Velvet”, an
insidious combination, and a little scotch. Capt. Whitehead
entertained with “Oh, It’s a Lovely War”, “Goodbye, Don’t Cry”.
etc. Also visited with Sim Lynch quite often an Estaminet were we
got good omelets, salads and fried potatoes plus wine. Returning
from one visit both our horses ran away with us but we managed to
stick on until they reached the stable.
Sir Douglas Haig paid the Battalions
a visit while we were on the M.G. range and congratulated Walter
Gillam.
Then a group of officers including
Marsh, Gillam, Paul Cushman, Bill Rice and Tom Harris went to the
English front on a training trip.
The so-called “Watten Maneuver”
couldn’t have been a worse mess for both the Division and the
Company. The day before we spent on the long M.G. range and through
some ball-up the men got almost no food. That evening Gaston was
sent to the front and Paul took over command of the Company whose
morale was at a low ebb. Again, little or no food was supplied,
long march, very hot weather, men dropping out. We reached our
objective after dark, too late to figure out the firing data and set
the guns. Bill Rice neglected to set them the next morning, as he
was supposed to do, and the company had a black eye; started our
hike back to camp at 1 A.M., and arrived at dawn with the men’s
morale at zero. Saw my first plane shot down in flames during the
march.
Gen. Pershing inspected the 77th
on Decoration Day.
The Non-Coms in my platoon at this
point were Platoon Sgt. Herries, Section Sgts. Pearson & Darcy,
Corporals Wagonbrenner, Talbot, Fanning & Bachner. From the platoon
Fubelli, Humphy, Mccaffrey & Lofgren were transferred to the
transport.
To the satisfaction of everybody,
Lt. Col. Winnier was relieved from command of the camp and
transferred to the infantry.
Tom Harris & Bill Rice brought back
reports of Richardson’s behavior while at the Canadian front. First
obviously frightened; later, when drunk, boastful and insulting.
After five weeks with the British,
we were ordered to move out, rumor had it, to a U.S. sector.
Typical ball-up about the British rifles. Day before leaving they
were cleaned, greased, bundled in threes and turned in. Next
morning we were ordered to draw them again
which entailed removing all the cosmoline. Shortly after
ordered to turn them in again; more greasy mess. All this on the
last morning when we were supposed to pull out at noon. At the last
minute orders came through to draw them again, but this time we paid
no attention.
Shortly before we left, Capt. Gaston had been brought up before a
Board to determine his fitness to command. We all had to testify.
The verdict was that he was unfit. On his visit to the front he had
been scratched by barbed wire and given an Anti-Tetanus shot, and
later on his way back caught in a severe air-raid at some R.R.
station. All of this was apparently too much for him as the morning
we were leaving, he became ill, rolled on the floor moaning, and was
eventually removed in an ambulance.
We left Monnecove at 1 o’clock on June 6th instead of the
scheduled 12 noon and did not reach our destination until 10: P.M.,
marching about 20 miles over steep hills in heat, with the men’s
feet blistering badly with no time to give the feet enough
attention. The men rolled themselves in their shelter halves and
went to sleep in an open field. Officers were billeted in a
so-called Chateau about a kilo away and were kept waiting up for a
“conference” with Richardson until 1 o’clock. Richardson had less
than nothing to say at the “conference”.
We were supposed to march at 6:30 next morning. With their
inexperience in making and breaking camp, the men had almost no time
for breakfast, such as it was, and no time at all for attention to
their blistered feet. Again the day was a scorcher, the roads hilly
and dusty, and the water cart did not appear till noon. The two
Medical Corps men did their best with iodine and tape at the ten
minute halts, but everyone’s feet were in terrible condition and
some of the best men had to take to the wagons. Paul was in
command, Rice and I riding behind the company trying to keep up the
stragglers. About 2 P.M. we reached Crequi where we were to spend
the night. There was a brook beside the road and the men bathed
their feet while billets were being assigned in barns, chicken
coops, etc. The kitchen was set up about a mile from the billets
and most of the men slept through till breakfast without bothering
to go to supper. Paul and I shared a room in the house of a very
decent old woman.
The final day of the hike was a different story. There had been
time to take care of the blisters and the men were getting hardened
up. The weather was cooler, and the water cart was available. We
reached our destination outside Anvins about mid-afternoon with the
men singing. Our camp ground was ideal, beside a river, shaded by
beautiful trees. Richardson bawled out Paul for pitching the tents
exactly where Richardson had told him to, admitted he was wrong
later but didn’t apologize. Most of the Officers and men went
swimming in the ice cold water and in the evening I walked into
Anvin with John Marsh, Sim Lynch, and Bill Flynn, looked at the
church, grave yard, and had a drink at the Estaminet.
The following day, Sunday, we were supposed to rest and start at 3
A.M. Monday to entrain in Wavrans. Sunday afternoon while most of
the men were on pass and Richardson and Hall were away, orders came
to break camp at once and go to Wavrans for the night. We sent the
buglers to the nearby villages to sound assembly and were on the
road in a little over an hour after receiving the orders, with no
confusion, aided greatly by Richardson’s absence.
Entrained at Wavrans June 10, 1918. A & B Co.’s and Headquarters
left in first section. C & D Co.’s in second with Gillam in
command. It was good to settle down in a R.R. compartment after all
that marching.
Because of the disruption of the railroads caused by the German
salient to Chateau Thierry, we had to swing far to the south via
Versailles, Sens, Wassy, and Toul to reach our sector, taking most
of three days. At our stop at Toul on the third day we were served
coffee, U.S. cigarettes & chewing gum by our first Red Cross & YMCA
girls. The American sector for sure! Late in the afternoon we
detrained at Thaone, a pretty little town on the Moselle, much more
cheerful than the northwest towns. We marched a few miles to
Dogneville and made camp in a field. An Alpine Chasseur officer
took the officers in town where he had the closed Estaminet opened
up and arranged for our dinner. We were the first Americans seen in
these towns and all the French were delighted and cordial. The
Chasseur was surprised at the way our men fell in line with their
kits and waited to be served at the rolling kitchen and remarked
that they were “tres discipline”; he probably expected the wild
Americans to riot.
Next morning we took off for Memenil through some fairly rugged
country. We had orders to get off the road if a plane came over.
Since there was an allied airfield at Dogneville, we were on the hop
most of the time. Saw many French soldiers working in the fields,
no doubt on leave for that purpose, and several trench systems. The
hamlets became poorer and dirtier as we progressed and Memenil
turned out to be the most miserable of the lot. A & B had already
arrived and were in shelter tents since the barns were too filthy.
We did likewise on a hillside outside the hamlet. Paul and I had
our tent at one end of the line.
Most of the A & B officers were sent immediately to M.G. school at
Moten. French gun carts arrived to replace the British limbers, and
we had our first look at the Hotchkiss gun. We were in Memanil for
5 miserable days. It rained two of them which didn’t improve the
shelter tent existence. Paul, however, with his French, arranged
for three old crones, who had the largest house in town, to feed us
which they were delighted to do in exchange for white U.S. bread,
jam, sugar, and a few franks. Sunday dinner, when they stewed up
the old rubber rooster and broke out the Au-de-Vie was quite a
celebration.
One afternoon McCaffrey and I rode over to Epinal, a city untouched
by the war in a very attractive setting with the Moselle flowing
through it. It seemed very gay and cheerful with very few U.S.
soldiers around. Had an excellent dinner with champagne and
strawberries for dessert; then walked around town, had another drink
or two at a café and started our homeward ride at 10 o’clock. It
rained hard on the way but we made camp OK. On June 19 the company
officers and four men from each squad were taken in trucks to a
French M.G. school at Fraimboise. The transport meanwhile and the
balance of the men marched to Baccarat with the French M.G. carts
tied on to the rear of the British limbers. En route in the trucks
we were shown Gerberviller, completely destroyed by the Germans in
1914.
We found a company of the 305th M.G. Btn., and the Trench
Mortar & 37 mm cannon of the 307th Infantry also at the
school. The French officers were an odd assortment but friendly and
casual. They combined their mess with ours when our civilian cook
went on strike.

We were taught the mechanism of the Hotchkiss gun by an officer who
had been a teacher in civilian life. Most of the training was on
the casual side, chiefly burning up thousands of rounds of ammo
shooting the guns but the men gained a lot of confidence in the guns
seeing the targets cut down. Most of the French officers were a
wild, hard drinking lot, especially the effeminate appearing Capt.
Davoust. The aim was to get the training over quickly to get back
to the Estaminet.
Paul organized an excellent mess for the men, borrowing utensils
from the French and some cooks from the infantry, with Soccoccio in
charge. All were well fed and got on splendidly with the French
soldiers. Our Non-Coms ate in the French N.C.O.’s mess
On Sunday afternoon Capt. Davoust organized an expedition to
Luneville for dinner at the Café de l’Agriculture. Paul, Bill Rice
and I together with Reggie Reeves and other 305th
officers and three French officers piled into limbers. En route a
French Lieut. vaulted onto one of the limber horses, but vaulted
back even more quickly when we met up with a French Colonel.
Luneville, though very near the front, had remained untouched for
some unknown reason.
Most of us deployed for some shopping and then gathered at the café
where we had a fine, raucous, rather drunken dinner. Reeves was
emcee, assisted by a fat old French reprobate, George, a friend of
Davoust. The French attempt to round up some women after dinner was
not a success.
As we were leaving, all the French troops were pulling out of
Luneville, no doubt for the Chateau Thierry front.
In Fraimboise we witnessed a ceremony in which a French soldier,
condemned of desertion, had all the buttons cut off his uniform
before being sent to jail.
The farewell dinner with the French after our 10 days was a gay
affair, with our tables moved outside under the stars. After dinner
we departed in trucks for the Haxo Barracks in Baccarat where we
arrived about midnight to the tune of an air raid. We woke up to
another and saw one of the planes shot down.
We found that McCaffrey had equipped the part of the company that he
had marched to Baccarat while the rest of us were at M.G. school
with roll-puttees and over-seas caps to replace the ghastly looking
winter caps. Major Richardson informed us that we were to take the
support positions in and about Vacqueville that night.
We started after dark with everyone excited, gas masks at the ready
and no talking, useless precautions as we found out later. The A
Co. runners who were supposed to guide us to the support positions
did not show up so we remained in Vacqueville for the night. I had
a billet in a dark and smelly ground floor room and Company
Headquarters were at the other end of the one street.
The next morning, for want of official information, I got an A Co.
runner to guide Sgt. Herries and me to the now vacated A. Co.
position on a hilltop to the right of the St. Pol road a mile or so
from Vacqueville. There, in a circular trench system, I chose one
gun position covering the Pexonne road and the other the valley &
ridge to the left. Going back in the P.M. I met the seemingly
nervous and excitable Gen Johnson who said that the Germans had
observation of the open hilltop, that the guns were to be manned
only at night, the men to be kept in the nearby woods, and no one
must expose himself in daylight. That night I took Wagenbrenner’s
and Fanning’s squads up the hill and set the guns as planned. I
made my P.C. in a splinter proof in the center of the trench system.
Rice’s 3rd platoon had positions on a hill to the left of
the St. Pol road and the 1st platoon was in the center.
The first night, the only excitement occurred when our own artillery
in the hollow behind us let go a few rounds. I went to the guns and
found everybody with gas masks on. At dawn we all took to the
woods, where the rations had been delivered during the night, except
for a sentry at each gun. I caught an hours sleep before breakfast
and then went down to town to report
On the third day Major Richardson inspected all our positions with
Paul and, without a word to Paul, the next day ordered Paul to D Co.
and put Tom Harris in charge of C. The little skunk had always
hated Paul, I guess because he knew that Paul saw through him, and
acted in a typically dirty way.
After two nights the other section of the platoon, Talbot’s and
Bachner’s squads, relieved Harris’ section.
Tom Harris selected alternate positions to my left where I was to go
in case of a break through and I made a tour of these. All this
time it was extremely hot and trekking back and forth to Vacqueville
and around the positions was no fun.
Lt. Philips, whom we had left at Monnecove and never expected to see
again, reported back and shared my billet with me.
Since Rice had been sent to school at Moyen, I had to inspect his
platoon’s positions also once a day, which I did on horseback most
of the way.
On the night of July 3-4, 1918, I was ordered to move my guns to the
right of the Pexonne road to emplacements shown on the map but which
actually were not there. However, I found two places that would do
for emplacements in a pinch and pretty well covered the wire in the
valley running down to Pexonne, and installed Wagonbrenner and
Fanning. Just as I was dropping off to sleep, what seemed like all
Hell broke loose. Wasn’t sure for a moment whether the shells were
coming or going, but it turned out that the artillery behind us was
celebrating the 4th of July with a barrage with such guns
as they had.
Next morning Sgt. Darcy appeared with rumors that the Germans had
broken through the front lines, or close to it, and with orders for
us to resume our old positions; so, tired and wet, (it had rained
hard all night), we slogged back with guns and ammunition boxes.
We had good meals at Co. H.Q. and quite a string of visitors,
including Jimmy Fargo and Frank Bangs, as well as officers from our
battalion.
The 2nd platoon was scheduled to relieve Lynch’s platoon
of Co. A in the so-called “I bis” line, so a couple of days before I
went up to look over the ground and arrange about the relief. Rode
as far as St. Pol, walked to A Co. H.Q. in St. Maurice and thence,
with a guide, to Sim’s position.
The four platoon guns were distributed over half a mile or more
along the edge of a thick woods called the Bois du Champs facing
Badonviller, still held by the Germans, across open fields. In
front of the “I bis” line were a few lightly held outposts. The
main Badonviller-St. Pol road ran through the woods and one gun was
located on the left of the road. Platoon P.C. was located not far
from the road where a French Lieutenant had a deep, damp, dugout.
Sim had chosen to live and sleep above ground where there was a
wooden bed frame nailed up between the trees with chicken wire
stretched across it. He slept on this, as I did when I took over.
(The thing was still there when I returned in 1924). Sim being busy
working out some barrage data, I toured the four positions with one
of his runners. The woods were very thick, easy to miss the trails
in the daylight and a real problem to get to the guns at night.
Before leaving, I arranged the details of the relief with Sim.
Everything went smoothly on the night of July 20. With the two
squads from Vacqueville I picked up the remaining two at the support
line positions on the hilltop, all hitched up and ready to go, and
met the A Co. guides as arranged and they led the squads to the gun
positions. I went to the P.C. Runners came in from Bachner, Talbot
& Wagenbrenner reporting that they were all set, but Herries’ runner
from the most distant gun at the right of the line got lost in the
woods. Sgt. Herries also got lost trying to come in next morning,
but I got out to his position and got rations to him. I had as
runners at my P.C. Sullivan, Ungren, and Underhill. Sullivan had
the job of dividing up the rations every morning for the four
squads.
Tom Harris, then the Company Commander, apparently never slept,
running his legs off covering the whole company front day and night
and exposing himself in a fearless but foolish manner. He and
Richardson planned new gun emplacements for Herries’ and
Wagonbrenner’s squads. Transport men were sent up one rainy night
to help with the digging. Had a problem as to how to feed and take
care of them. Each squad had to do its own cooking and find cooking
utensils as best it could.
The afternoon that the French, who had been supporting us, pulled
out, we were ordered to pull in Herries’ and Wagonbrenner’s squads
to double up in Talbot’s and Bachner’s emplacements on the left of
the line. Then at midnight we were ordered to move them back to
their previous position. With luck, we managed it in the dark and
thick woods.
Some pioneers were sent up to tunnel under the Badonville road to
connect up with the gun positions on its left.
Tom Harris brought Capt. Scott up to my P.C., announcing that he was
the new Company Commander.
After 8 days I was relieved by the M.G. Co. of the 308th
Inf. under Capt. Hubbell. The relief went smoothly, picked up
Herries’ squad, and hiked back to Baccarat, all pretty weary, but
had to wait for an hour before Bill Rice showed up with our
billets. I was assigned to room with Paul Cushman across the street
from the Officer’s Mess.
We remained in reserve at Baccarat until Aug.2, during which time
Sgt. Moyer was rather badly wounded in hand grenade practice &
Kerrigan was hurt by a detonator explosion in the barracks.
On Aug. 2 we started a three night hike to the railroad at Charmes
via LaChapelle, Menil, and Gerivillers, the last a filthy village
with most unfriendly people. The second night the pouring rain and
pitch blackness made it very difficult to stay on the road at all.
We camped next night in a birch woods outside Charmes and entrained
the following night. Company C was divided, a section on each
train, to provide protection in case of air raids. Bill Rice went
on the first train to assemble the various sections at the
destination. We felt sure that we were going to the Chateau Thierry
area where the Allies had broken through the German salient, and we
were right. We bought a lunch of Champaign and Bar-le-Duc and
arrived at St. Simeon about midnight, passing en route U.S. heavy
naval guns mounted on flat cars. Got the gun carts, horses, etc.
off the train in jig time and spent what was left of the night in a
field where Rice had collected the Company. Received orders next
morning to take four men and the gun from each squad and load them
on trucks by 11 A.M. The balance of the Company and transport were
to follow on foot under Paul Cushman and Philips.
After a ride with no stops and no food, pulled up a couple of kilos
north of Fere-en-Tardenois in the evening. After getting the men
and equipment into the woods Capt. Scott and I crawled into our
bedding rolls on the ground and slept.
Fere had been recently fought over and captured by U.S. Divisions
and the woods reeked of unburied men and animals. The Germans had
retreated behind the Vesle River, leaving behind a tremendous amount
of material. Their bottled water and food, in great warehouses, we
found especially acceptable.
Talked with a woman who had just returned to her demolished house in
search of her mother too old and ill to be moved when the place was
evacuated - no trace of the mother.
There were two wrecked U.S. planes nearby, in one of which Quentin
Roosevelt had been killed. That night B Co. pulled out for the
front on the Vesle. The balance of the Battalions arrived after a 4
day forced march, almost exhausted.
On the night of Aug. 14, 1918, we, (A & C Companies), left Fere,
marching through the much battered Chery Chartrevre and pulled off
the road and into the woods near La Tuileeris farm, sending the
animals back to a more protected spot. Next morning everyone dug an
individual funk hole and then collected all sorts of salvage,
including German light Maxim M.G.s and U.S. Springfield rifles.
While in the woods we practiced shooting the guns until a nearby
artillery battery requested us to stop because the German guns
started shelling the battery when we fired. Also, I visited the Red
Cross and YMCA in Chery to get chocolates, cigarettes, etc.
The Vesle River, where the Germans had elected to halt their hasty
retreat from the Chateau Thierry salient, was a very narrow stream
running through a deep, marshy valley with fairly high but almost
bare hills on the south, (American), side, offering very little
cover. The shell shattered hamlet of Mt. St. Martins was on the
crest of the hills and Ville Savoyes below near the river. The 32nd
Division had reached the Vesle on their advance north. They were
relieved by the 4th who lost heavily in their attempts to
advance and were relieved in turn by the 77th. The 28th
Division was on our right with a foothold in Fismes. Our Brigade,
(the 154th), held the right sector of the line next to
the 28th but not in liason with it.
One night shells began dropping nearer and nearer to Le Tuillerie
Woods where A & C Companies were camped until one hit just on the
edge of the trees. I made a dash for the slit trenches and found
most of the other officers already there. John Marsh moved A Co.
out of the woods and kept them in gas masks for a long time,
although there was no sign of gas.
The only position north of the river occupied by the Division was a
few hundred yards of railroad cut with a fairly high embankment and
a small patch of the wooded area north of the cut leading out toward
a German strong point in and around a villa known as the “Chateau
Diable”. A company of the 308th Inf. and six M.G.s from
B Co. had been assigned to this position for about a week and the 2nd
Platoon of C Co. plus 2 guns from the 3rd Platoon were
due to relieve the B Co. guns on the night of Aug. 21. On the night
of the 19th I took Sgts. Wagonbrenner & Bellard with me
and went forward to look over the position. There were still a
number of unburied dead to step over in and near Ville Savoye. The
only bridge available to cross the Vesle consisted of a couple of
large logs with flattened tops. We got to the cut without being
shelled.
I went over the positions with Nachazel, but he was unwilling to try
to find the 2 guns in the woods on the right in the dark. As far as
I could learn, both flanks were wide open with no one to prevent the
Germans from filtering in between the river and us.
The way back was a little more difficult. M.G. bullets started to
mow the grass in the field on the way to the bridge and we had to
take to the shell holes as best we could until the gun ceased
firing, and again on the road between Mt. St. Martin and the St.
Tuillerie woods Germans began to search the road with artillery. I
took a hole in the bank infuriated that they should have picked that
particular spot out of five miles of deserted highway. Luckily, the
shelling stopped just before it reached my hole.
Started for the R.R. cut on the night of Aug. 21 with Lt. Scratt and
six gun squads – Corps. Belmore, Young, Fanning and Ruoff from the 2nd
Platoon, Corps. Propheter and Sampson from the 3rd, and
Sgts. Pearson and Wagonbrenner. Major Richardson wished us good
luck. Reached the cut with no incidents. The squads were led away
to their positions by B Co. guides. Lt. Nachazel told me about the
German barrage that morning and felt sure a raid was due. Just then
a German mortar “Pig” came tumbling in behind us and Nack took off
without further ado with B Co.
I went the rounds of the four guns in the R.R. cut till about 3:30
A.M. and had just started a second round when the Boche cut loose
with a box barrage. I visited three of the guns and met Lt. Scratt
coming in from the right of the line. I sent him to confer with
Capt. Frothingham of the 308th Infantry Co. Up to that
point there was much smoke and some gas but till then no direct
hits. The box barrage stopped at dawn and Belmar’s gun on the left
facing down the track got a light machine gun team trying to cross.
I went down the line to find out what had happened. Found that the
Germans had completely over-run the infantry platoon and 2 machine
gun squads in the point of woods north of the track running out
toward the Chateau Diable, capturing or killing the whole detachment
and were now holding the area.
Two of the four guns on the R.R. embankment had had direct hits and
four of my men had been killed – Collins, Daucette, Galivan & Hill.
One man, Fay, was missing and five wounded, Propheter and Thundberg
seriously; Hitt, Sherin, and Young lightly. Got the walking wounded
evacuated and sent Azzinare to Capt. Scott with a report. Then
moved the two remaining guns and divided up the men who were left to
man them and also set up a captured German light Maxim gun to sweep
the track on the left toward Bazoche. Sniping and light M.G. fire
from the flanks and rear where the Germans had infiltrated grew
rather heavy.
I crawled into a funk hole in the embankment to write a second
message to Scott when Corp. Fanning rushed up to tell me that Capt.
Frothingham was pulling K Company out and retreating behind the
Vesle. The Captain hadn’t bothered to give me any notice of his
intention. I ran down toward his command post and found K Company
of the 308th assembled at the entrance to the single
narrow path that led back to the log bridge across the Vesle, ready
to take off. Sent for the two remaining guns and their crews
immediately and they arrived before all the infantry had left. The
difficulty was that there were not enough M.G. men left to carry the
guns, tripods, and ammunition boxes, so I gave the ammo boxes to the
retreating infantry men and, foolishly, one tripod. I then climbed
the bank with Sampson’s gun and squad and set it up in such cover as
I could find where it would cover the cut and tracks to some extent
in case the Germans attacked while the retreat was in progress.
Retreat is a polite word for it. The Infantry were running as fast
as they could by this time, and the C Company men doing pretty well
behind them. When the last of them had disappeared down the path
with a good start and no Germans had appeared, I followed with the
covering gun. We all got back across the bottle-neck single track
bridge without any interference from the Germans who must have been
asleep but, to my horror, I found we had only the gun the last squad
was carrying with its tripod, plus the two boxes of clips and one
other gun without a tripod. The Infantry had thrown away the other
tripod and all the clip boxes in order to make better speed.
The woods on the German side of the river were a jungle, offering no
field of fire. I didn’t see what good I could do there with my one
operable gun and almost no ammunition so I pulled the gun and the
men back along the wood road leading to Ville Savoye and set it up
on the hillside, covering the road by which we had come with the
intention of covering any possible further retreat by the Infantry,
and sent another message to Scott.
Pretty soon I saw the relief with guns, ammo, etc. coming over the
crest of the absolutely bare hilltop in broad daylight under full
observation by the Germans, who started to shell them at once. Two
men were killed and another wounded, but the rest came on under the
command of Lt. Philips. I placed the new guns with him and waited
to take them back into the R.R. cut where the Infantry were supposed
to attack and retake the lost grounds. The infantry attack,
however, was a complete fizzle. The companies struggled in one at a
time with no coordination and lost heavily from German shell fire.
Philips and I had our P.C. in the cellar of a ruined house in Ville
Savoye, with the replacements scattered through other cellars while
the attack was going on. Lt. Philips was stricken with a terrific
stomach-ache and was rolling around in agony, completely out of the
picture. By midday I decided that someone had to find out what was
going on along the river and what, if anything, we could do to help,
so I started out along the narrow gauge railroad line that led from
Ville Savoye to the road into the river. As I neared the river I
got caught in a pretty heavy barrage. With no funk holes, or the
like, for shelter, I lay flat as I could on the ground while shells
landed all too close to me on all sides. By good luck, I wasn’t
touched. I found out little except that the attack had been a
failure. Then went back to Ville Savoye where everyone was
surprised to see me, having seen and heard the barrage where I had
gone. Then I started to lead one squad, Keefer’s, back into the
front line along the Vesle, but the Germans spotted us along the
narrow gauge line and started some well directed shelling. They
must have had an observation post and a gun close by in the woods.
Luckily there was a ditch beside the track and some funk holes to
which we all took. One man, Engbarth, was fatally wounded, but was
the only casualty.
One German gun, which sounded very close, devoted its complete
attention to my hole. Seeing me in the lead, I suppose they assumed
that I was an officer. The shells landed within feet of me but I
was protected from the bursts by the ditch and the hole, and nothing
hit me. I don’t know just how long they kept it up because I was so
exhausted that I dozed off after a while, and when I came to, the
shelling had stopped. After dusk Philips, who had recuperated, and
I got all the guns in to the south bank of the Vesle, where the
infantry had their front line, with no incidents. Philips then took
over, and I went back to what was known as the “Chalk Quarry” behind
the crest of the hills above the Vesle.
There were trenches there with holes dug into the forward wall for
protection. We were supposed to be resting in a reserve line, but
the battery emplaced close behind and shooting right over the trench
almost blew us out of the trench when they put on their nightly
barrage, and allowed for little sleep.
After four days of that, I relieved Philips on the line still south
of the Vesle. I had pretty bad dysentery by that time but still
made the rounds of the gun positions every day, including the two
guns that Fisk had north of the R.R. cut in the Chateau Diable
woods.
On the way back to the Quarry after being relieved by Philips, I had
a rather extraordinary encounter with a Col. Prescott, Regular Army,
who had recently been assigned to the division. He asked me about
the disposition of the troops in the front line, particularly those
in the Railroad cut, and absolutely refused to believe me when I
told him that the cut had not been retaken. He became furious, and
since I saw that we were getting nowhere, I simple left him fuming.
After 4 days we were relieved by Capt. Hubbell’s Machine Gun Company
from the 308th Inf. On the way back, three duds, or
possibly gas shells, landed very close to us in the Ville Savoye
street. Luck was with us.
We went back to the Dole Woods where the transport was stationed and
I shared a shelter tent with Paul. The woods were out of the range
of the lighter artillery and I relaxed – ate nothing but rice
because of the dysentery – and generally let things slide. The 1st
Platoon occupied anti-aircraft positions nearby, but never got a
chance at the planes that came over every afternoon and regularly
brought down one or more of our observation balloons while the
observers parachuted to the ground. The only disturbance occurred
when Sgt. Shank hit Underhill over the head with a shoe.
On the fifth day of our stay at Dole a rumor circulated that the
Germans were pulling out of Fismes and their positions behind the
Vesle. Nevertheless, we were ordered back to the La Tuillerie Farm
woods. We made a leisurely move since there seemed to be no hurry.
No sooner, however, had we reached La Tuillerie than the rumor was
confirmed, and we were ordered forward to cross the Vesle at the
only available bridge in Fismes. After a hasty feeding of the men,
we started forward. The one road was jammed with the entire
Division trying to get to Fismes in a hurry. There was considerable
confusion as night came on but we found Doug. Campbell at a runner
post and received orders to pull off the road and wait till morning,
which we did somewhat further down the hill. By that time it was
pouring rain and pitch black. Capt. Scott located a dugout of
sorts, and Philips and I shared it with him for the night. The
original 3:30 A.M. starting time was put off for an hour or two, and
we managed to feed the men, one squad at a time, at Paul’s field
kitchen. D Company had gone forward to Fismes, and we heard the bad
news that Capt. Walter Gillam and Tom Harris had been killed by the
same shell while the Company was stalled at an intersection in
Fismes. The road forward was still jammed, but after a couple of
long waits, we finally got across the half repaired bridge. We
continued north on the east side of a valley leading up to
Blanzy-les-Fismes, together with artillery, infantry, & transport
pretty well intertwined. We passed the German H.Q. cave used the
night before by Brigadier General Johnson, then in command of the
Division, where he and most of his staff had been gassed during the
night by slow leaking gas tanks left behind by the Germans. This,
just after he had issued a memo criticizing the Division for having
too many gas casualties. We halted a little south of Blanzy, below
the crest of the ridge, and dug into the steep hillside along the
road.
Company headquarters were in an iron “Elephant’s-back” sunk part way
into the hillside. Gun carts and animals were at the bottom of the
valley. Paul brought up the kitchen and urged Scott to let him move
the animals a little further back where they would have greater
protection from shell fire. Scott in his stubborn way refused, and
that night the shelling killed Catania’s pet buckskin team and two
other horses. We were in the support with nothing much to do, but
Philips & Fiske lightened the boring days with a number of amusing
songs and quotations from Shakespeare & Omar Khayyam. Other
officers from the front line dropped by frequently to get hot food
from our kitchen. Campbell, now Major of the Battalion, visited us
daily. Bill Rice was now in command of B company, Henry Ralph
having been wounded. Scott and I still had bad dysentery but we
went, at one point, and had a good meal with Campbell and McCaffrey
at Bn. Headquarters in the former German headquarters cave where the
Brigade staff had gotten itself gassed. Another day I went back to
the transport location and had a swim in the Ardre River with Paul.
We were told that we were to be relieved on the night of the 15th,
but nevertheless at noon on the 13th, we were ordered to
put down an indirect fire barrage in support of a combined
French-American attack on Revillon and the Petit Montagne. In the
early afternoon, without previous reconnaissance, Scott loaded up
the men with guns and tripods, and with Philips and I, and led them
out on the completely bare hillside under German observation. We
found a little trench near the road and parked the men in it for
some cover. Scott picked a position in the open, just barely within
range, lining up the gun positions with six guns on each side of the
road. Philips and I persuaded Scott to take the men back out of
sight while we did the computations for the indirect fire with the
aid of the goniometers and set the aiming stakes and flash screens.
Then we went back and worked out some final data by candlelight in
the Elephant’s back. We were to start the barrage at 5:30 A.M. and
continue until 9 A.M. Then, if no word came back to us that the 3rd
stage of the attack was to be staged, we were to go back. At 3 A.M.
Fiske led an ammunition detail forward, Scott, Paul Cushman, and I
following shortly with rest of the Company. We got the guns placed
and started shooting on time. When the attack started, there was an
amazing display of fireworks. As the sun came up and the mist
cleared, we must have been under observation. There were a number
of planes overhead, both Allied and German, but they seemed so busy
chasing and fighting each other that the Germans failed to spot us.
One plane was shot down, we thought an American, but were not sure.
We started back over the hill to Blanzy at 9 o’clock and as soon as
we had left our position, the Germans started shelling it,
accurately and heavily, and also the road back to Blanzy, but we
zig-zagged through the fields and had no casualties.
No sooner had we gotten back then we received orders to go forward
again and put down an M.G. barrage on Petit Montaque. This meant
finding a new position considerably further forward than in the
morning in order to be within range of Petit Montaque and advancing
with the whole Company carrying guns, tripods, and ammunition under
full observation of the German artillery in broad daylight. We had
little ammunition left and had to send back for more but started
with what we had. We were shelled, but with luck and some right and
left obliques, no one was hit. We came to a wooded ravine leading
up from Merval. The 3rd platoon crossed to the far side
and set up their guns there; the other platoons remained on the
south side. We did not have enough ammunition for a regular barrage
and could only fire a clip once every three or four minutes. Every
time we did fire, it brought down shell fire near us, but not close
enough to cause casualties. Two or three infantrymen brought a
badly wounded man into the ravine for cover and first aid and
Captain Scott protested violently, fearing that it would attract
more shelling to our positions. We were expecting to spend the
night there and the men had begun digging funk holes into the sides
of the ravine when the order came for us to return to Blanzy. By
then it was dark, and we were not shelled on the return trip. The
infantry attack which we were trying to support was a complete
failure with heavy losses. We were lucky indeed to have had no
casualties.
Most unhappily, however, the luck did not last. The next morning at
dawn the Germans started shelling our support hide-out in the Blanzy
valley and made a direct hit on the hole occupied by three of our
best and most intelligent men, Corps. Hehre, Hemburg, and
Pvt. Scott, killing or fatally wounding all three.
We were relieved that night by an Italian Division who came through
Fismes and across the Vesle with an incredible amount of noise –
lanterns, cigarettes, matches, and everything but a brass band. For
the first time in two weeks there was no shelling. On any previous
night they would have been cut to pieces. After the Italians’
arrival we made our way back through Fismes as quietly as possible
and after a few kilos were taken by truck to Arcy-le-Ponsart, out of
range of the German artillery. Everybody was feeling happy because
of the supposedly sure rumor that we were going to a rest area for
re-equipment and replacements. I had a comfortable billet with a
bath and clean sheets. Next day I put on clean clothes and field
boots, believing the rumor. Next day the transport started south
with new mules to replace the losses and at about 7 P.M. we climbed
into French trucks, driven by the usual stone-faced little
Indo-Chinese soldiers, and proceeded at a fast clip with no stops.
The trucks had no springs and the going was incredibly rough. We
passed through Eperney, Chalon, and Vitry-le-Francois in the
moonlight. Suddenly thereafter, we realized that we were headed
north again and the morale sank out of sight.
The Division had heavy casualties on the Vesle and in the subsequent
advance toward the Aisne, far outweighing their actual
accomplishments. The liaison between Corps, Division H.Q., Brigade
H.Q., Regimental H.Q., and down to the poor Infantry Battalions &
Companies who had to do the actual attacking was incredibly bad.
Orders reached the Battalion and Companies far too late, if at all,
to stage the coordinated attacks contemplated by the higher
echelons. Consequently, the attacks were usually made in driblets,
one or two Companies at a time, with little, if any, artillery
preparations and were completely futile.
We finally pulled up in the afternoon outside of St. Mard-sur-Aube
and waited in a field for a couple of hours while the French vacated
our billets. I drew a billet over a bakery and had fine hot fresh
baked bread for breakfast. The men had chicken wire bunks in French
Army huts. After spending the day in St. Mard with strict orders
for no one to show himself in the open, we started after nightfall
on a long, cold, wet march to Verrier where we pitched shelter tents
in a steep, narrow gully in the blackness and pouring rain. The
next night we hiked again through St. Menehould and Florent where we
picked up our guns and equipment which had been brought forward by
truck. Marching through the deserted streets of St. Menehould, to
my surprise, the men started singing “Keep your head down, Fritzi
boy’, showing that the morale was still O.K. Thence we went to a
large French camp in the southern part of the Argonne Forest.
Something big was in preparation, but we did not know what. Secrecy
was strictly enforced. No one was allowed to be in the open during
the day.
What was in preparation was, of course, the huge Meuse Argonne
offensive with 9 American Divisions stretching from the Meuse River
on the right through the almost impassable Argonne Forest on the
left – a distance of some 25 to 30 miles – with a French Army
supposed to advance simultaneously through the open Champaigne
country to the left of the forest, all on the morning of Sept. 26th,
1918.
The valley of the little Biesme River was the dividing line between
the French and German Armies. It cut through the forest in roughly
east-west direction with high steep bluffs on both sides. The
French had a few outposts on the edge of the north bluffs, but their
line of resistance was at the edge valley at the foot of the south
bluffs in the “La Basse” trench system. There had been heavy
fighting in the forest during the first year of the war, but both
sides had decided that the going was too tough, and for the past
three years both had used this sector as a rest area for worn out
Divisions, and no serious fighting had taken place. The day
following our arrival in the area we planned the takeover from the
French of the front lines. I was assigned the line-of-resistance
with two platoons, (8 guns), stretching for about ¾ of a mile along
the “La Basse” trench with clear fields of fore across the Biesme
Valley to the northern bluffs some ¼ to ½ mile away. My command
post was at what was left of the hamlet of “La Placardelle” near the
road at the extreme left of the gun positions in an Elephant’s-back
hut. My orderly at that time was Angelo Stanco who acted as cook
and generally took excellent care of me. All the instructions and
orders, however, were in either French or Italian, mostly
handwritten and difficult to decipher. It took the best part of a
day to make the rounds of the gun positions, see that they got their
rations and understood what they were supposed to do in case of an
attack. If an attack had come, I would have had no control of the
gun squads.
On the following day, Sept. 25, Capt. Scott called me back to the
Headquarters camp, a good 4 to 5 miles in the rear, to give me my
orders for the advance to take place at dawn on Sept. 26. I was to
accompany the 3rd battalion of the 308th
Infantry with my six guns, (two guns under Granzen were assigned to
another mission), and report to Capt. Breckenridge in command. I
saw Capt. Breckenridge and discussed how and where to join him.
Rather than trying to march my men back the five miles to his
starting point at the camp, and then back with him to the bridge
over the Biesme LaHarazee, an impossible task anyway with ammunition
boxes as well as guns and tripods, we decided that he would pick me
up at the road at La Placardele which seemed to be the only possible
route to the bridge over the Biesme at LaHarazee.
He had orders to supply 20 infantry men to assist in carrying the
ammunition boxes, so that was no problem. I assembled the six gun
squads with all the equipment near the road and waited for about 30
minutes past the time when he should have arrived. Then I led the
men down toward the bridge and discovered that his guides had led
him off the road and down a trail through the woods a few hundred
yards before reaching La Placardelle. Why he didn’t send a
messenger forward to advise me of the change, I never found out.
By the time I reached the bridge, I found that Breckenridge and
Whittlesey had already crossed. I went ahead through the jam of
troops and found Breckenridge, with only a part of his Company,
completely stalled near the bottom of the one very deep and narrow
trench leading up to the front along the side of a ravine cutting
into the high bluff. The entire 308th Infantry, along with some
other assorted units, was trying to go forward up this one and only
narrow communication trench, and the congestion was incredible. He
said that Whittlesey was somewhere up ahead – he didn’t know how
far. The going outside the trench was impossible because of barbed
wire and huge rocks. All of the outfits were split and jumbled up
and the Headquarters Company was making matters worse by trying to
come back down the trench. I ran back, got my platoons, and somehow
bulled my way for quite a distance up the trench by walking over
other fellow’s backs. Finally, when further progress was
impossible, I left Sgt. Bouton in charge of the platoons and climbed
forward to see if I could locate Whittlesey. Eventually I found him
across what had been no-man’s-land in one of the German trenches.
By that time the fog had become thicker than I had ever imagined fog
could be and I became hopelessly lost in the maze of French front
line trenches. I kept going around in circles for a while and
finally ended up almost back at La Harazee before I found the right
communications trench and picked up the Company again and led them
up the now nearly deserted trench, across no-man’s-land and into the
German trench system. In a mile or two we came up with Whittlessey
who had come to a halt in a German strongpoint, equipped with dug
outs, kitchens, etc.
All this time there had been no shelling and almost no machine gun
fire. The Germans had been caught so much by surprise that it took
them a good 24 hours to react. The worst enemy was the fog, which
held up and confused everything all along the American front from
the Meuse to the Forest. It was lucky that the Germans could not
organize a counter attack since all our units were so badly split up
by the fog and the terribly tough terrain that no one knew where
they were or where anybody else was.
We had bad luck that night. Sgt. Bouton was shot through the lung
by a jumpy raw infantry replacement, (heard later that he lost a
lung but survived). Otherwise, the night was quiet enough. The
expected orders to advance did not come in the morning so
Whittlessey stayed put. About noon Lt. Col. Prescott appeared and
blew his top because we had not advanced at dawn. We then started
forward. I and my guns were attached to the un-lost elements of an
Infantry Company under Lieut. Aker that was to advance on the left
flank. The fog and general spookiness of the morning of the 26th
had been too much for a battalion of the Colored 92nd
Division who were supposed to serve as liaison between the 77th
and the French on the left outside the forest, and they did not go
forward at all. But then, neither did the French who couldn’t, or
wouldn’t, advance either.
We followed a path leading forward on the left of the line, knowing
that the Germans probably had most of the trails covered by machine
guns, but it was impossible to make any headway through the dense
jungle-like forest growth. Even on the path the going was very
slow, particularly for the machine gunners with guns and tripods to
carry. I had two guns with the advance patrol, the others in the
rear. Twice we were held up by machine gun fire. Instead of
sending out patrols to locate the M.G.s, Lieut. Aker ordered me to
use our own M.G.s to clear them out. We set up the two forward guns
and fired several bursts in the general direction from which the
German fire seemed to be coming. To my surprise, it worked, and the
Germans ceased firing. We had completely lost touch with the other
elements of the Battalion advancing, we hoped, on our right, and had
only a vague idea where they were. When darkness came on, we holed
up in an old, long unused German trench, set up guns on both flanks,
and prepared to spend the night. It was raining, cold, and
miserable. In the morning we continued to go forward and shortly
heard rather heavy firing in front of us. In a little while we came
up with some medical corps men and an assortment of the rear
stragglers of Whittlessey’s outfit. No one seemed to know where
Whittlessey and the front line were or how to get there. The best I
could get was “up there somewhere”. I left the platoon there until
I found out where to lead them and proceeded up a wood road. I
hadn’t gone far before I came upon an Infantry officer lying in the
path with a bad wound in his back. While trying to get him into
better cover, I heard an M.G. open up close by and felt a blow, as
if by a baseball bat, on the back of my left thigh which knocked me
down. I found that I could walk, but only just, and hobbled back to
where I had left the platoon. I’d been hit by one of the M.G.
bullets and was bleeding quite a bit. At the platoon one of the
medical corps men put a First Aid bandage over the wound. He rather
misled and scared me about the seriousness of the wound by
exclaiming “My God, it’s gone right through and out the other
side.” I sent a runner back to Capt. Scott to ask for a
replacement. After an hour or so, the medico got together a group
of wounded, stretcher cases and walking wounded, and started toward
the rear. I decided I had better go along in their company and left
Sgt. Popp in charge of the platoon.[1]
I cut myself a stick to use as a crutch, and with its aid was able
to keep up in the three or four mile walk back to La Harazee. Above
La Harazee I was put in an ambulance and after a stop for an
anti-tetanus shot, was taken to the forward triage in the ruined
church at La Chalade. After what seemed like a long wait, the hole
was swabbed and a new dressing put on. Then I was put in a truck
where I had to stand and taken to the Evacuation Hospital #114 at
Fleury. There I was given a cot and hot food. I was exhausted and
slept most of the time. I’m vague as to how long I was there, but
probably on the night of the following day I was loaded aboard a
hospital train of a sort, made from converted French coaches, and
had an overnight trip to Base Hospital 18, (the Johns Hopkins Unit),
at Bazoilles. There we were really pampered – hospital beds, clean
sheets, fine food, and plenty of attention from doctors, nurses, and
Red Cross girls. Since I was far from a serious case, I was
evacuated after 3 or 4 days to make room for badly wounded cases
coming in from the front. I was put on a brand new hospital train,
with three tiers of beds on each side, and taken all the way across
France to Base 27 at Angers. The officer’s ward was already pretty
crowded but the service was excellent. They kept me in bed for ten
days before they would let me take a step. After that a Capt.
Whitehead of the Marines, (who appropriately had his head swathed in
white bandages), and I explored the town and had some enormous and
delicious dinners at the “Chapon Fin” restaurant. At our first meal
we demolished a large roast chicken. I finished up my
hospitalization at a convalescent hospital nearby and then applied
for a week’s wounded leave.
A Lt. Ticer from Portland, Oregon, who was released at the same
time, and I decided that we would go to Nice, which seemed to be the
favorite rest area. To get there we had to go via Paris, where we
took in the famous Follies, which seemed to me a much over-rated
performance. In Paris I ran across Poultney Corter on his way back
to the Battalion after a wounded leave.
The weather in Nice was cold, rainy, and depressing. The place was
full of Americans getting tight and generally raising Cain and on
the whole, I found the leave rather disappointing.
I got back to Paris on Nov. 10th and had the luck to meet
Simpson Lynch, also returning from wounded leave, on the Rue de
Rivoli. One was supposed to remain only for 24 hours in Paris but
Sim and I decided to overstay our leaves so as to take in the
Armistice celebration there on the 11th. The night of
the 11th there was really something to behold. The whole
of Paris turned out into the boulevards and paraded up and down in a
sort of college snake dance with locked arms, singing and screaming.
In order to regain the Battalion I first had to go through the
replacement centers at Le Mans and Tours, which turned out to be a
bore and nuisance. In Tours I met George Gaston, who bore me no ill
will though I’d testified at the hearing in Monecove that he was
incompetent. Tours was a depressing place. All the officers who
had been found unfit for combat service had been sent there and were
wandering around like lost souls. I was ordered back to the
battalion, which was what I wanted, of course. Again, I had to go
via Paris to get a train east. I left the train at
Clermont-en-Argonne and hitch-hiked north on a supply train as far
as the Battalion supply dump. There I met Sgts. Moyer, Young, and
Bellmar, also on their way back from the hospital. I rode over to
Stonne where B & D Companies were stationed with Walter Young and
the next day rejoined Co. C at Beaumont. Paul, Ralph, and Schuch
were with the Company and I was glad to get back. After a day or
two we started the long hike back to the area assigned the Division
east of Chaumont. Our first stop was at Buzancy where all but Henry
Ralph and I left for leave. We took the long march in easy stages.
Henry and I were mounted and I enjoyed the trip. My leg was a bit
sore where the saddle rubbed it but not really painful. We did very
well for ourselves in the way of billets and meals and I was much
interested in seeing the towns, or what was left of them, that had
been so bitterly fought over by our own and neighboring Divisions.
Our stopping places included Chatal Chehery, where an infantry cook
used a barbed wire demolition pipe filled with TNT as part of a base
for his fire and completely blew off one leg. Henry and I tried to
hold his femoral artery closed, out of which blood was pumping, but
without much success. Other overnight stops were at Four-de-Paris,
Florent, Sommeilles, Sermaize, and Escaron. At Sermaize we had a
festive Thanksgiving dinner with a French officer, his wife, and a
teen aged daughter who played the violin very nicely indeed.
We reached Maranville, our destination, about Dec. 2nd or
3rd. It was not a very attractive little town. The
chief industry seemed to be a cane factory owned by a M. Bouvret.
Also, there was a large old stone Chateau in use as a home for
broken down and senile Priests. Here I had my billet in a large but
cold and damp room. However, the bed was good. Shortly after
arriving I managed to have jaundice; Masssillo brought my meals,
chiefly rice, over to me and generally took good care of me.
In January Sim Lynch and I went to Pau on leave. The weather was
fine and we took trips to Lourdes and elsewhere in the Pyrenees and
found an exceptionally fine little restaurant in Pau.
On returning to Maranville we found that Lt. Schuch, who had been
billeted with M. & Mme Bouvret, had met, through the Bouvrets, the
Gaboury family, which consisted of Mama, three teen-aged daughters,
two younger children, and a, fortunately, usually absent father who
was a pharmacist with the French Army. Papa was a religious fanatic
who was feared and hated by the rest of the family. He had a
pharmacy in Nancy, and when Nancy was evacuated early in the war, he
had brought the family to Maranville because of the convent and
convent school. Every afternoon M. Bouvret would have Mme. Gaboury
and the three daughters over for tea with Schuch, Sim, and myself.
The parties were heavily chaperoned but we found that Mme. Gaboury,
when plied with a little Anisette, would take to the piano and play
the March Lorraine, the Sambre Meuse, and other patriotic tunes with
great zest. This gave an opportunity for a little hand-holding on
the sofa, and that was all. The girls were really very pretty and
sweet. Sim fell heavily for the middle one, Madeline, about 18, and
talked about coming back and marrying her. Whenever the father was
in town, the show was off. All of this helped the time to pass very
pleasantly and improved our French.
I was highly delighted one afternoon at Retreat when the Company
presented me with a gold watch. Nothing could have pleased me more.
On Feb. 17, 1919, we left Maranville to go to the so-called
Embarkation area nearer the coast. We marched to the train at
Bricon on a bitter cold, snowy day. Paul, Simpson, Crouse, and I
had a compartment on a captured German car with no heat. I felt
pretty sick upon our arrival at La Chapelle-du-Chene and two days
later Dr. Bowman sent me to the hospital at Solemne in an ambulance
with a 104 temperature with the flu and pneumonia. The conditions
there could not have been worse. It was a large Benedictine
Monastery in the process of being taken over by the French,
supposedly to serve as the “Area” hospital for the new area into
which the Division had just moved. The new staff consisted of 2
doctors, 4 orderlies, and 2 French nurses, who were not interested
in doing any nursing, to cope with three or four hundred men from
the Division down with the 1918 variety of flu. I lay around a hall
for a long time before being put in a room by myself on a straw
mattress bed with no springs. The French brought around some
inedible slop for food. I had to totter down a long cold hall to
the bathroom. I doubt whether I would have pulled through if Sim
Lynch had not been brought in with a much lighter case of the flu on
the second day. We were both moved into a ward with a number of
delirious and dying pneumonia cases. He was able to wait on me to a
considerable extent since there were no orderlies available. The
whole division medical staff was within a stone’s throw but the
Medical Major in command had neither the wits or the guts to call on
them for assistance. Sim was well enough to write a letter to our
Battalion doctor describing the situation and asking him to try to
do something about it. The letter somehow fell into the hands of
the Major in charge who came storming into the ward to give us
Hell. Sim was well enough to sit up and give the doctor back as
good as we got, accusing him of being an inefficient spineless so
and so. (Sim told me later that he had met the man on the transport
going home. He had a practice in New York and when he found that
Sim was a New Yorker, he was full of excuses and alibis).
My eye ulcer opened up as usual with a high fever but there was no
medication or eye man available. In the course of a week, with
Sim’s waiting on me, I did get better and shortly thereafter we were
loaded in an ambulance and taken to the Base Hospital at Angers, the
same place I had been in when wounded but now staffed by a new unit
fresh from the U.S.A. I was the first really sick patient they had
had in the Officer’s Ward and I got no end of attention from both
the doctors and nurses. It seemed like heaven after Solemnes, with
clean sheets, comfortable bed, and good food. Sim again was in the
bed next to me with a nice young Atlantan named John Harden on the
other side.
A trained eye man, Dr. Reid, took care of my eye ulcer and all was
well. After a couple of weeks Sim arranged to be sent home before
the Division and left for Bordeau.
My eye healed very slowly and Dr. Reid kept me around the hospital
for treatment for a long while. I was up and out meanwhile and John
Harden and I had a pretty good time playing around with a couple of
cute nurses, taking them out to dinner and dancing. John was very
much smitten with one of the nurses, Catherine McCloy, in our ward.
She was known as Billie Burke and looked a great deal like her.
Finally I went back to La Chapelle and rejoined the Company. It was
then commanded by a Capt. Pennington from the 3rd
Division. We also had two fine Lieutenants from the same Division,
Joe Rodenbaugh & Adams. The main excitement was Adams’ marriage to
the ugliest cross-eyed French girl in all France. Adams was a
top-draw Main-Line Philadelphian, very attractive and good looking.
His girl in the U.S. had broken their engagement and married someone
else and Adams on the rebound had married this rather intelligent
but unbeautiful girl. The wedding luncheon was a rare function with
all the relatives attending including an old duffer who kept his
derby on throughout the meal. (Heard several years afterward that
the Adams marriage was a success and that the couple was living
happily outside Philadelphia).
At last we got our orders to proceed to Brest for embarkation. We
spent three days at Camp Pontanezon and then boarded the
Aquitania for a smooth and uneventful voyage to New York where
we landed on April 24th.
After a short stay at camp near New York, on Long Island, (Mills, I
think), we were sent to Camp Upton where we started. Both officers
and men were discharged on May 10. In the meantime we had our
“Welcome Home” parade up Fifth Avenue and a Victory Dinner at the
Waldorf.
COMPANY C, 305TH MACHINE GUN BATTALION PERSONNEL KILLED
OR FATALLY WOUNDED IN ACTION
Officers:
Harold L. Fiske
2nd Lt. Argonne Forest
Alfred R.
Noon 2nd
Lt. Lost Battalion
Joseph A. Skratt
2nd Lt. Aug. 22, Vesle
Enlisted Men:
Arthur
Beatty Aug. 22, with relief
of Vesle
Gustave
Becker Lost Battalion
Frederick J.
Brenner South bank of Vesle
Homer E.
Collins Aug. 22, in R.R. cut
James Cunnane Sept. 28,
Argonne
William E.
Doucette Aug. 22, R.R. cut
Frederick L. Engbarth
Aug. 23, with relief of Vesle
James C. Galivan
Aug. 22, R.R. cut
Charles Hehre
Sept. 16
Robert R. Hemberg
Sept. 16
Columbus C.
Hill Aug. 22, R.R. cut
Louis N.
Johnson Lost Battalion
Giovanni Limongelli
Aug. 26, south bank of Vesle
Charles E. Murphy
Aug. 22, R.R. cut
Arthur
O’Neill Aug. 24, south bank of
Vesle
Garvin W.
Scott Sept. 16, Blanzy les Fismes
Frederick Staats
Lost Battalion
Sam
Steinberg Aug. 22, with relief
of Vesle
Robert A. Stewart
Frederick G. Tegler
Guiseppe Troina
Argonne
[1] It appears that my father was wounded
on Sept. 27th, and he saw no further action
during the war. Eight days later, on Oct 5th,
the Battalion to which his Company C was attached for the
Argonne-Meuse offensive, led by Major Whittlessey, was cut
off and besieged by the Germans, and became the famous “Lost
Battalion”. They held out until Oct. 7th, when
the siege was finally broken by advancing allied troops, and
they suffered heavy casualties. Of an original force of
over 500 men, less than 200 survived. According to my
father, the officer who replaced him was killed in that
engagement.
TMBjr